


magnificent morghy's magic box

by europa_report



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Universe, Contains the swearwords, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Memory Loss, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 01, magical forgetfulness has consequences kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-02-07 11:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18619903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/europa_report/pseuds/europa_report
Summary: “It has everything you need,” said Morghy. “And everything you want. And everything you just….” He squinted, pinching his fingers together as if trying to recall something. “Everything you forgot you needed.”“Uh huh,” said Keith. “Sounds legit.”A shifty trade deal for some machine parts leads Keith to making a deal with an odd alien salesman, or more specifically, the magic box in his possession. The only problem- no one can remember the price. But how high can a price be, when it's something everyone inevitably forgets?





	1. magnificent morghy's magic emporium

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual I had no time to write so I wrote this. I just miss those happy season 1 klance vibes, thanks for reading!

It started like most of Keith’s bad days did: surrounded by people, in the cold, on a planet whose favourite colour was purple. There they were, the three things he hated with passion: people, the cold, and _purple_. This stupid mission wasn’t even part of their plan to stop Zarkon; no, they were here because Coran wanted some weird mechanical parts. And not to sound like a selfish prick, but why couldn’t Coran get those parts himself? Because this sucked. _Big_ time.

“It should be right on the next block,” said Pidge.

The smallest paladin was currently bundled head to toe in jackets and scarves, with a big poncho draped over her to top it off. They were trying to blend in here, so weren’t allowed to wear their suits, which was unfortunate since those things contained a great inbuilt thermoregulation system. Anyway, not like Keith was upset about it, or anything.

“Will this shop have a heater?”

There was Lance, whining like he always was, jumping up and down on his toes to keep warm. Keith ignored that he’d been pondering the same thing, saving face rather than giving Lance the satisfaction of agreeing with him.

“Maybe if you’d brought a scarf like Allura _told you_ to, you wouldn’t be so cold.”

“Thanks Keith,” Lance sneered, “as if you’re not cold too.”

“I’m not,” Keith bit back.

He was.

“Whatever,” Lance muttered, yanking up his collar to try and cover his frost bitten nose.

“I did suggest the gloves with fingers would’ve been more comfortable.”

Keith turned to glare at the figure on his right, Shiro, who was the only one not looking cold. That was only cause of his stupid acclimation to space, or something, not because he’d dressed sensibly. With gloves. And a scarf. And a really warm jacket and _god_ Keith hated this mission.

“Do you know how irritating you sound when you say that,” Keith muttered. “ _I told you so_.”

“But I _did_ tell you,” said Shiro, grinning ear to ear.

Who was he, acting like Keith’s sadistic fairy godmother? The little angel that got to sit on his shoulder and nag him _oh Keith, you forgot your practical gloves again_.

“Ugh!”

This planet, aside from being overpopulated, cold, and purple, was also incredibly ugly. There was really nothing charming about it; Keith hated it, hated it so much he regretted ever joining Voltron for this sole and immensely irritating reason. It seemed as if the entire land area was populated by small, dense alleyways and rundown establishments selling all the things you didn’t want, and didn’t _need_. Aside from Coran’s machine parts, that was. It was a galactic trading hub, a entrepreneur’s hotspot, an absolute dream for criminals and scammers and shifty salesmen. At least five separate aliens had tried to sell Keith one of their weird perfumes thus far, _for the wife_ , they said, while an additional two had gotten it right and tried to sell him a knife. He didn’t care if the knives looked nice, they were probably scam knives, sold by scammers. Besides, one of them was purple, which was just- no. No thank you.

“We’re here,” Pidge announced just ahead of them, and ducked into the makeshift shop.

Keith thankfully followed her in, ignoring Shiro’s amused expression as he observed the freezing paladins. It was slightly warmer in here, or _less cold_ , however you wanted to put it. Despite how it looked from the outside, this shop was tidier than many of the others, with dusted shelves displaying all sorts of mechanical gadgets, most of which Keith could only guess at. Hunk’s eye lit up the moment they were through the door, the boy forgetting all about how cold he was as he jumped at the chance to search through the shop’s collection. Even Keith could admit it was kind of exciting, even if he was very much not in the mood to be there.

“Ah, welcome!”

Their group jumped as a curtain near the back was yanked open and the shop owner strolled out to great them.

“His face is a jellyfish!” Lance blurted in a whisper, earning himself a sharp elbow from Shiro.

Keith resisted laughing; Lance wasn’t wrong, this guy did kind of have a jellyfish for a face. While they’d encountered a number of odd-looking aliens since joining Voltron a few weeks back, it still came as a shock sometimes when something particularly strange cropped up. The shop owner either hadn’t heard, or was used to comments such as Lance’s, because he continued to sweep towards them on a very numerous amount of legs.

“My name is Greg and I gratefully invite you into Go-Gadgets Go-Getum Grand Go-Collection,” the jelly man began. “For Gentlemen.”

Shiro looked to be getting over the mouthful of a name, so began to retrieve the notes from Coran from his pocket-

“We have anything and everything a gadget getter can get,” Greg the salesman interrupted. “We have Gadjems and Go-engines and Galactic Gar parts and Gorgons and farm fresh Gam as well as Gook books, Gama-absorbers, Gamer-tips universal, Gandy-“

“We’re actually just looking for-“

“Glitch-inhibitors, Gorfin-shift stabilisers, Gift wrap, Gime gorblers, Ghime gorlbers, Gnime gorblers, Gime gorblers second edition, garden gnomes-“

“I don’t think all of this is necessary,” Shiro tried, but quickly fell silent.

“Gap accelerators, Gorslik extrapolators, Gam-gamory engine gams, whole range Goose guts, Gaderators, Gatorade, Alligator Gate Guzzlers, eight percent Gameed, with Go-great savings to top it all off. And a life-sized model of Ghandi,” Greg completed. “Collectors edition.”

“We’re looking for a Gama Goose Generator,” Keith snapped, fingers curling into angry fists.

For a moment, the whole shop sat in blissful silence, until-

“Uh, I think its Gama _Fuse_ Generator,” Lance said.

“All the G’s are messing with me,” Keith hissed at his companion.

He whipped back to Greg when the salesman hummed thoughtfully, resisting grabbing him by his stupid jelly tentacles and demanding where the generator was so they could go home and be out of this stupid city with it’s stupid cold weather and stupid, stupid purple _everything_.

“I don’t believe we’ve got that in stock,” Grey said thoughtfully.

He perked up suddenly, but Keith’s hopes died the second he opened his mouth. Tentacles? Keith didn’t know, his whole face just sort of… wobbled, when he spoke.

“As for the Gama _Goose_ Generator, we’ve just had a new shipment come in!”

“You’re kidding me.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro said sternly, giving him that _I’m the older brother so I’m the responsible one and you’re acting like a jerk_ look.

Keith glared at him, then at the ground, resisting rubbing his arms cause then Lance would know he was cold and tease him. How hard was it to find a damn generator? They’d tried like four places already.

“Do you think you could check the back for a fuse generator,” Shiro was beginning calmly. “It’s just we’ve come a long way and-“

 _Aaand_ , Keith was zoning out. God, this was boring. Just like the other four places they’d visited. Overpopulated, cold, purple, and boring. Someone save him.

“What’cha looking at, mullet?”

Nope, someone else.

“Nothing.”

“Hm,” said Lance, picking up the odd looking contraption Keith hadn’t been staring at to begin with. “What do you think it does?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not gonna guess?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun,” Lance protested with a pout.

It disappeared a moment later when it was replaced with a devilish grin. Lance held up the little contraction, which looked kind of like a hand puppet, but made of metal, and with teeth, and maybe resembling a deformed pigeon.

“Think I should stick it to Shiro?”

“He’ll smite you.”

“Why don’t you do it then?”

“Cause then he’ll smite _me_ ,” Keith said.

God, didn’t Lance have better things to do?

“Nah, you’re his favourite.”

“You have no idea how fast Shiro can run,” said Keith, jabbing his finger at Lance’s chest. “And you have no idea the cold, cold look of disappointment he will give you before throwing you into the nearest available body of water.”

“Tough childhood?” Lance asked.

“I’m not pinning that on him.”

“Fine, fine. Knew I shouldn’t have gone to _Keith_ if I was looking for fun.”

“I’m standing _right here_ -“

“Gentlemen, is there anything I can help you find?”

Both boys whipped around at the sound of Greg’s voice, Keith’s hand drifting instinctively to his knife when he found the jelly-man standing a little too close for comfort.

“Yeah,” Keith snapped, while Lance put the contraption down guiltily. “The Goose- _fuck_. The Fuse Generator.”

“Ah, but your friends are looking for that,” Greg said, gesturing over his shoulder. “I meant for you two.”

Keith glanced at the others and found them scouring over a catalogue of sorts, perhaps looking if the product was listed under another name.

“We don’t need anything.”

“Ah,” said Greg. “Everybody needs something.”

“Not from here,” Keith muttered, but went unheard as Greg swept past them.

“Perhaps allow me to recommend something then.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Lance whispered under his breath.

Keith snorted.

“Behold,” said Greg, with a cringey air of mystery. “The Gorfsnoffer.”

Both boys leant towards the object, which looked like ten or so shapes moulded messily together, frowning.

“What is it?” Lance asked.

“One of our most popular sellers!” Greg announced, ignoring the question.

Lance’s curiosity got the better of him as he plucked the object out of Greg’s hands, turning it over between his fingers and trying to figure out how it worked.

“What’s it do?”

“It is a weapon of enticement,” Greg waffled on, waggling his eyebrows, which were just smaller, grosser tentacles.

“Enticement,” Lance echoed, then frowned. “Wait, what?”

“I have countless recommendations from other couples,” Greg whispered, leaning closer to them as if sharing some deep secret.

“Oh my god,” said Keith. “Lance, put it down.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Think of it as a means of… enhancing, your relationship.”

“Do you think we’re a _couple?_ ” Keith snapped, maybe a little louder than intended.

“I still don’t get what it is,” Lance said, staring at the object Keith wished he’d just _drop_.

“We can discuss it in private if you’d prefer,” Greg said seriously. “But for only five hundred gac you could be enriching your love life-“

“Stop,” said Keith.

“Love life,” echoed Lance.

He looked at Greg, then at Keith, then at the Gorfsnoffer perched innocently in his hands.

“Oh my god,” he said.

His face turned red; _instantly_. Keith would’ve laughed, were he not two seconds away from sending Greg and his stupid tentacle face a message in the form of his fist.

“Is this second hand?” Lance whimpered, face still red.

“No, no,” Greg assured. “Though a certain number of our products are randomly tested before the leave the warehouse.”

Lance dropped the Gorfsnoffer with a yelp, and Keith had officially had it with this whole entire day.

“I’m leaving,” he hissed.

Shoving past Greg and ignoring Lance’s dramatized sounds of distress, Keith marched straight for the door.

“Keith,” Shiro called. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know!” He shouted back, refusing to feel guilted at the sight of their confused faces before stepping out into the cold and slamming the door shut behind him.

The cold embraced Keith instantly, making him regret stepping into that shop in the first place, because now it was even worse being back out here.

“Perfume for the wife?” The nearest shop seller asked.

“I don’t _have_ a _wife!_ ” Keith snarled, slamming his palms down on their table before storming off in the opposite direction.

Hadn’t anyone on this planet ever heard of minding their own damn business? Keith walked as fast as he could through the cluttered streets, needing to put distance between him and the irritating shop seller. What was Greg thinking, trying to sell something like that to… to Lance, and to him. To Lance and him together. Keith could laugh. It was bitter cold now, and miserably grey. Grey and purple, a scatter of dirty snow and ice on the ground turning to mush beneath people’s feet. Keith just wanted to leave, but knew they wouldn’t be allowed to until they had those stupid parts. This sucked, all of it, Greg and his gadget shop, the cold eating at his fingers, _Lance_. Stupid Lance. It was his fault Greg tried to sell them that.

Keith was so caught up in his thoughts he didn’t notice at first the decrease in sellers trying to push their products to him as he walked past. When he finally did click on to the silence, it came as a pleasant surprise. Also a bit of a creepy surprise. It was much, much quieter in this part of town. He looked around, stunned to find he’d managed to work his way out of the main crowd. The alley’s here were no less narrow, but there were far fewer people about, and those aliens who were eyed Keith with the same suspicion he regarded them with. A dark, blobbish alien shouldered past him, muttering to themselves, and Keith glared after them. Then swallowed. It was _weirdly_ quiet out here.

Looking around, he found the streets almost entirely deserted, and most of the buildings to be shops that were either shut or closed down completely. In fact, there was only one that stood open. It was an ugly building, all hunched over and dark, seeming to spill onto those around it. Despite the dreary exterior, there was a neon sign flashing above the entrance.

_Magnificent Morghy’s Magic Emporium_

Did everything here rely on alliteration? Keith studied the shop a little more. There were a few more signs hung up, also in neon purple.

 _Open 340/16!_ It read. _We’ll remember what you forgot you needed!_

Keith frowned, arms crossed tightly to protect him from the cold. That had to be the scammiest shop front he’d ever seen. Well, either scammy, or like they murdered people inside. Still… it wasn’t as if Keith had _forgotten_ Coran’s machine parts, but he did need them. It was worth a try, even if it did kind of give him the creeps. Anything to escape the cold and boredom he supposed. Maybe if he ended up getting into a fight they could do something better, like leave.

The door was a gloomy affair, with a big brass handle right next to a flashing sign that read _what you need is here, forget about the rest!_ Oh lord, this better not be a brothel. The passage Keith entered was dark, lit with a few funny looking lanterns that burnt blue, illuminating the way towards a curtain at the other end. Hand on his knife, Keith crept forward, listening out for sounds or people other than himself. There was faint noise from behind the curtain, but it wasn’t voices or music or anything, rather the soft tinkling of bells. Weird.

Keith reached the curtain without incident, and stood there feeling nervous while shifting foot to foot. He still couldn’t hear anything but that tinkling; a wind chime perhaps. Better to get this over fast. He tore the curtain aside, knife in hand, and jumped into the room. There was… no need for the knife. Yet, at least. It was a shop like any other, except that it wasn’t like any of the others at all. _Magic Emporium_ did sort of do it justice, given the odd assortment of clutter filling the shelves. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, so Keith began to explore. There were only a few hundred herd and suspicious substance filled jars, alongside what were perhaps musical instruments. The ceiling sparkled with what looked like stars, casting the whole place in dim light. There was every sort of fabric imaginable draped from hooks and curtain rods, and Keith spotted the source of the tinkling. It was an assortment of bells orbiting each other, knocking into each other mid-air like a confused pack of bumblebees. He stared at them in awe, the way they floated in mid air, almost like-

“Magic,” said a voice, making Keith jump.

He whipped around, heart rate skyrocketing before his eyes landed on a stout little alien.

“Is our trade,” the dwarfish looking alien completed before Keith had the chance to drive a knife through him.

The alien beamed, and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. Just as Keith was getting sick of sleazy shop owners.

“Can I help you, traveller?” He asked, eyeing the knife in Keith’s hand.

“Uh, no,” the paladin said awkwardly, tucking the knife away. “Sorry, I was… going.”

“There’s nothing you need?” The man asked.

“You don’t have it.”

“Ah, but we have everything.”

Keith paused, frowning, and took a second to study the alien. He was short, barely coming past Keith’s knee, but that was by no means an indication of ability. A wispy beard covered his chin, though his skin was a sickly purple-grey and his ears a pointed. His eyes were also a little too beady for Keith’s liking, but something about the way he spoke made him hesitate.

“You can’t have _everything_ ,” Keith scoffed, mostly because he just wanted to prove one of these sleazy sellers wrong.

“Magnificent Morghy’s Magic Emporium can give you anything you need,” the man said with a knowing look in his eye.

Keith didn’t know why he was listening; perhaps the chance at getting what he needed and getting off this planet was too tempting.

“What?” He asked snappishly. “Are you Morghy?”

“You are full of questions and suspicion,” the alien said, squinting up at Keith. “But yes, you may call me Morghy.”

“Okay… Morghy, I’m looking for a Gama Goose- _shit_ , a Gama Fuse Generator. Which no one in this stupid quadrant seems to have,” Keith muttered under his breath.

Morghy waved him off. “Oh, you don’t need to tell me what you need.”

Keith just stared at him, unimpressed.

“Then how will you know-“

“Follow me,” said Morghy.

God, this was getting more suspicious by the second, but Keith was getting desperate. It was thanks to that desperation that he decided to follow Morghy deeper into the shop, where things just got… weirder. Now there were jars containing eyeballs of things Keith didn’t even know, a suspicious amount of multi-coloured shoes, a number of animated wooden sculptures, a toy bird flying circles above them, and then, in the centre of it all, a box. Keith couldn’t explain what drove him to being so inexplicably drawn to it; maybe the fact that it was purple. And blue. And a little red. There was some yellow too but it was subtle. The box was polished beautifully, about the size of a shoebox and perched on a fancy red cushion atop a stand as if it were the single most important thing in this shop. And no offence, but Keith had just seen like a whole life sized stuffed mammoth, which seemed kind of more important. So what the hell was this?

“This,” Morghy emphasised, and damn could this guy read his thoughts? “Is Magnificent Morghy’s Magic Box.”

Okay, that was a normal enough amount of weird.

“It has everything you need,” said Morghy. “And everything you want. And everything you just….” He squinted, pinching his fingers together as if trying to recall something. “Everything you forgot you needed.”

“Uh huh,” said Keith. “Sounds legit.”

“Oh it is,” said Morghy suddenly, planting his hands on the box and leaning towards Keith seriously. “Everything you need, young man. Don’t believe me?”

“Say I do believe you,” said Keith, because why the hell not. “What’s it cost?”

“Oh,” Morghy said with a chuckle. “You cannot buy the box.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“You buy what’s _in_ the box.”

Keith crossed his arms. “What if I want a convenient carrying case-“

“The magic box will give you what you need,” Morghy continued. “You need only think of it. Here, come here, try it.”

Keith hesitated, eyeing the box and Morghy with suspicion.

“It won’t bite,” the alien said with a chuckle. “Not unless you want it too.”

“I don’t,” said Keith.

“Then come, come!”

At Morghy’s insistence, Keith dared to come a little closer. The box was shut, currently, though it didn’t appear to have a lock more than the small latch at it’s front. It was painted beautifully, and darkly, so the slight colours seemed to shift beneath his eyes.

“Try,” said Morghy, his eyes growing a little wider with excitement. “You simply… place your hand on the box, and think of what you need, what you desire.”

“This is dumb,” said Keith, just so this alien knew where he stood on the matter.

Then he placed his hand on the box anyway. Keith didn’t know what he expected to feel, some magic energy maybe. But there was nothing.

“Are you thinking of it?”

“Yes I’m-“

Keith flinched at the sound of a click, noticing the latch had quite suddenly undone itself. Weird, but nothing to yell about.

“Ah, it is done!” Morghy announced, springing forward and prying Keith hand off the top.

“Now open it,” he instructed.

Stifling a sigh, Keith reached for the box and carefully raised the lid, Morghy’s eyes sparkling as he did so. Inside was-

“Is it what you wanted? Is it what you need?”

“Uh… yeah,” Keith answered numbly, staring at the knife. “It actually is.”

It was a really nice knife. Exactly the knife he wanted.

“Uh, it’s what I want,” he said. “But not actually what I came for.”

“Ah, be careful,” said Morghy. “For each customer, only one product.”

That sounded like a dumb rule, but whatever.

“Okay, well can I redo it?”

“Of course,” Morghy said, gesturing enthusiastically. “Simply close it, and try again.”

Starting to feel a little more hopeful, Keith shut the box and latched it again. He placed his hand on top, shutting his eyes for a second as he thought hard about the parts Coran wanted. _Gama Goose- no, Gama Fuse Generator_. Keith opened his eyes when he heard the latch unclick once again, opening the magic box a little more hesitantly this time.

“Huh,” he said, as Morghy inched closer in anticipation. “That’s what I need.”

“Excellent!” The shopkeeper exclaimed. “Oh, excellent.”

“Alright,” Keith said, finally starting to feel better.

He reached towards the generator that was sitting in the murky blue light of the box, only to have his hand slapped away.

“Not so fast!” Morghy hissed.

“Oh, sorry, what does it cost?”

The alien glared at Keith for a second, his face all scrunched up.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t _know?_ ”

“I forgot!”

“How can you forget the price of something you sell?”

“Because it doesn’t cost money,” the shopkeeper insisted.

“Okay… then what?”

“I said I forgot,” Morghy snapped.

Keith sighed. “How am I meant to buy-“

“The box will take the payment it requires.”

“That isn’t reassuring! If I don’t know how much it’s taking, what is- it could be taking something unreasonable!”

“It can’t be that much or that important if I forgot about it,” Morghy snapped back. “Now can it?”

Keith sighed, fed up. “I guess,” he muttered.

“Look kid, do you want the goods or not?”

Keith looked down at the generator, the one they’d already searched five stupid planets to find. If he got this they could go home, and he could be warm, and he wouldn’t have to look at the colour purple for at least another week.

“Fine,” said Keith. “I’ll take it.”

“Lovely,” said Morghy, and beamed.

“Is that all?”

“No,” the alien said, smile suddenly vanishing from his face. “It’s also twenty gac deposit.”

Oh, there was the sleazy salesman Keith knew and loved. With a roll of his eyes, he fishes the money out from his pocket, slapping it into Morghy’s hand before turning back to the box.

“So how do I… pay for this?”

“Hm?” Morghy looked up from where he was sorting though his gac. “Oh, just approach it slowly. Let the box decide.”

That was literally not helpful at all. With a shrug, Keith reached slowly into the box. He certainly wasn’t expecting the blue light to react as he stuck his hand inside, almost rearing up to meet him. He flinched, but didn’t withdraw, watching in fascination as the light wrapped around his arm and then… was this… were they shaking hands? Was he shaking hands with magic light? Yes, Keith decided, especially as a chill ran through him like a short burst of electricity. A split second later, the light vanished.

“You’re free to take it,” said Morghy.

“But what did…. What did it take?”

“ _I_ don’t know,” the alien complained, too caught up with his gac now to care. “I forget these things!”

Well, that was good enough for Keith. He snatched up the generator, the metal cold against his skin. The box fell shut behind him as he turned, and Keith officially could not wait to be out this shop and off this planet.

“Guess I’ll be going,” he said.

“Goodbye,” Morghy said, waving him off.

Keith watched curiously as the little man stalked off into the shadows, still counting out his money. Whatever, he had what he needed. Keith felt much more confident now, leaving the shop. He followed his own messy footprints through the snow once he emerged, up until he hit the familiar bustling market place. Salesmen called to him, but he ignored them, in significantly better spirits than earlier. Almost feeling good enough to-

Apologise. Maybe.

Keith stared begrudgingly at the storefront of Go-Gadgets Go-Getum Grand Go-Collection, debating whether to go it. He had been rude, and after all, Greg had only been trying to help. Even if he was irritating. Relenting, Keith stepped in, tucking the generator under his arm as his eyes searched the empty shop. The others had moved on then. Greg was standing at the desk near the back, tapping away on some weird gadget that Keith was definitely not going to ask about. He looked up when Keith approached, a smile lighting up his face.

“Ah! Welcome! My name is Greg and I gratefully invite you-“

“I know-”

“-into Go-Gadgets Go-Getum Grand-“

“I know I know I _know!_ ” Keith shouted before Greg could begin his long spiel. “I came in here like half an hour ago.”

Greg frowned, pausing with his tentacles raised in welcome. “You did?”

“Uh, yes. With my group. You tried to sell us… uh, never mind. Look, I wanted to apologise, for being so rude earlier.”

“Rude… well, er, thanks,” said Greg, “but I don’t remember you coming in at all!”

He laughed, despite Keith frowning.

“What, really?”

“No! Ah, don’t take it to heart. You know how it can be, when I’m so overrun with customers.”

Keith looked around the deserted shop. “Uh, sure.”

“Can I interest you in anything while you’re here?”

“No, no I have what I need. I just came to say sorry, and thanks… for your help.”

This felt weird. Keith kind of wanted to leave.

“Thank you,” Greg replied awkwardly. “And you’re sure there’s nothing-“

“Nope! Goodbye,” Keith said with a tight smile, turning heel and walking for the door.

His eyes fell on the catalogue the others had been looking through on his way out, still open to the page on generators. Wow, Greg had a bad memory. As soon as he was back outside, Keith checked his communicator, finding a message from Shiro telling him the others were waiting by the ships. Keen to be off this planet, Keith made his way back with haste, still feeling confident with the generator even if the interaction with Greg had thrown him.

Keith spotted the others in the shipping yard they’d parked in, using an old disguised shuttle so as not to draw attention. He waved as he approached, even managed a smile given how good he felt about the generator.

“You’re late!” Lance called, but was cut off by Hunk springing to his feet.

“Oh my god guys, he has the generator!”

“Oh of _course_ he does,” Lance muttered, drowned out by the excited chatter of the others.

“Where did you find this?” Shiro asked in astonishment, taking the thing from Keith’s arms and turning it over.

“Weird shop down the street,” Keith said with a shrug.

“What’d it cost?” Lance asked suspiciously, looking for a fault in Keith’s story.

“Twenty gac.”

“ _What?_ That’s impossible!”

“Or maybe some people don’t know how to drive a hard bargain Lance,” Keith said with a smirk. “Oh, how’d it go with that thing in the gadget shop by the way? Found a way to be enticing-“

Keith kinda deserved the shove he got for that, but Lance also deserved the light kick he got in return.

“Stop being children!” Pidge called. “Allura’s expecting us.”

“Yeah yeah Pidgey, we’re coming,” Lance muttered, ramming Keith with his shoulder just for good measure.

Keith shouldered him in return. Lance tried to get him in a headlock but he ducked.

“I will launch this shuttle without you,” Shiro called.

“No!” Lance gasped. “You could never forget about me!”

“Oh I’m not forgetting, I’d just prefer to leave you two here,” Shiro said with a smile.

What followed was a mad dash to the shuttle, all arguments forgotten. Shiro was still laughing at them after they launched, all while Keith gazed out the window back at that weird planet. Magnificent Morghy’s Magic Emporium sat somewhere on the surface, whatever that strange place actually was. Oh well, Keith had what he needed. He hoped he could forget all about that odd little shop.


	2. the strange occurrence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the encouraging comments <3 <3 <3 I'm glad you're all reading!

Dinner that night consisted of a weird alien stew Coran had cooked up for them, since the man was in such good spirits about getting his fuse generator. Keith was practically being hailed a hero; he got served first and everything. Lance was possibly the least enthused about this whole situation, sitting hunched over his own bowl and blowing irritably on the steaming stew, not contributing to the discussion at all. Whatever, Keith found the generator, paid for it fair and square. Wasn’t his fault Lance wasn’t the centre of attention this time.

“This stew’s amazing,” Shiro said, as Coran finally joined them at the table. “Thanks for making it.”

“You’re very welcome number one,” Coran answered happily before his brows knit together. “Though I did intend to make something else to celebrate. My famed garbler-warbler fruit cakes, but I er, seem to have lost the recipe, again.”

The elder Altean frowned, stroking his moustache while the others pretty much ignored him and went on eating.

“Last time I found it pinned in the airlock. Wonder how it got there, eh? Lance, you haven’t seen it lying anywhere this time have you?”

Keith looked over to Lance, who’d frozen around a huge mouthful of stew. He swallowed painfully while looking anywhere but at Coran.

“Nope,” the boy said. “Haven’t seen it.”

“Pity, pity…” Coran muttered, going back to his puzzlement.

“Where did you find this thing anyway?”

Allura was now the one speaking, sitting beside Hunk and twirling the generator around in her hands. She looked in awe of it, as if she’d never really expected them to find it.

“It was just in some weird magic shop,” Keith said with a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Magic shop,” Lance muttered. “Yeah right.”

“Incredible,” said Allura. “I hoped you’d find it, but given how rare these things are to come by nowadays, I did have my doubts.”

“Well, seemed easy enough in the end.”

“Hah, _easy_ ,” Lance muttered again, and Keith was really getting sick of him doing that.

“And what did you say you paid for it?”

“Twenty gac.”

As far as Keith was concerned, the rest was a hoax. He’d checked his pockets and even his room out of paranoia when he got back, but nothing was missing. Unless that box took a single hair off his head or something, he was pretty sure nothing else was missing. Hence, twenty gac for the generator; nothing more, nothing less.

“I still can’t believe that,” Hunk said, joining Allura in staring at the generator. “Those things are meant to be in the thousands!”

Another shrug.

“Maybe Morghy didn’t know it’s true value.”

Keith frowned. “Well he did, but… he said he forgot. He forgot what it cost.”

“So he just decided to slap twenty gac on as the new price? Who _is_ this guy,” Pidge exclaimed. “And when can I go back to buy him out?”

“It’s probably a scam,” Lance interrupted. “You know, a rip off of the real thing. It’s going to go dud the second we try install it.”

“You’re just jealous _you’re_ not the one who found it,” Keith replied smugly.

He watched in amusement as Lance’s expression shifted from feigned disinterest to shock to anger.

“Am not!” He spluttered. “I’m the only one being realistic! There’s no way that guy would’ve sold something so valuable for only twenty gac, and to Keith of all people! You don’t have one bargaining bone in your body.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! Unless you threatened him with a knife or something.” Lance frowned. “Wait, did you?”

“No,” Keith scoffed. “I got it fair and square.”

“Fine,” Lance said. “Don’t believe me. But don’t come crying to me either when it turns out to be fake.”

“Oh believe me, you’re the _last_ person I’d go crying to.”

“But you are admitting you’d go crying to one of us?” Pidge asked, a glint in her eyes.

“No that’s- irrelevant point,” Keith snapped, and crossed his arms. “Cause I don’t cry.”

“What, really?” Hunk asked, looking concerned. “Man, that’s so unhealthy. I cry like every day, sometimes. Sometimes twice a day, when, you know, we’re stressed and stuff. Sometimes even more.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Said Keith.

“Excellent stew, Coran,” said Shiro. “Thank you.”

“Oh thank you, number one. Though I _intended_ to make garbler-warbler fruit cakes-“

Keith spent the rest of dinner watching Lance awkwardly evade question about the whereabouts of the fruitcake recipe, feeling happier with himself the more and more he thought about that generator.

-

The first odd occurrence was not something Keith thought much on. It happened late into the night, when everyone was finally returning to their rooms to sleep after an evening spent talking and laughing and discussing plans. And maybe Pidge and Lance had gotten into a battle of scissors paper rock that ended with Shiro’s arm needing to be detached, but it all worked out in the end. Until Keith reached his door, that was.

Everyone’s room was fitted with a scanner lock at the door, which was essentially a pad that read your hand before allowing you in, unless you’d left the door unlocked already. Keith never left his door unlocked, didn’t trust Lance not to go snooping about in his room and messing with his stuff. So upon arrival at his door, he pressed his hand to the scanner for just a second, expecting the door to open immediately-

A pitched beep, and the scanner flashed red beneath his palm. Keith raised his hand, confused, looking between the lock and the door that had remained shut. _Print Unrecognised_ , flashed up on the pad, causing him to frown. Keith tried again, then again, yielding the same unfortunate result. Were his hands sweaty or something? Usually the pad was fine at picking up on people’s handprints.

“Locked out are you mullet?”

The confused frown on Keith’s face grew aggressive, as he turned slowly to confront Lance. The blue paladin had just arrived at his own door, the one next to Keith’s, and was smirking at him from where he’d just successfully unlocked his room. 

“Did you do this?” Keith asked, an edge to his voice.

“No, but I wish I did,” Lance said. “Have fun sleeping on the floor Keithers!”

With that, Lance ducked into his room, the door sliding shut behind him and locking automatically. _Jerk_. Frustrated now, Keith tried his door three more times before giving in to go and find Coran. The man was rarely hard to find, usually awake reading long after everyone else was asleep, and thankfully for Keith he was all in the mood for helping tonight.

“Locked out, eh?”

Coran bent down to practically press his eyeball to Keith’s scanner while inspecting it. He prodded the screen, rubbing his chin the whole time as if nothing had ever puzzled him more.

“Show me.”

For the twelfth time that evening, Keith pressed his hand to the pad, sighing when the same message popped up.

“Unrecognised print?” Coran said. “Very odd indeed. No matter, I’ll just reset it for you.”

“Okay… thanks.”

Keith watched with vague interest as Coran pulled out a tablet from his pocket and began searching through it. When he found what he was looking for, he began fiddling with the scanner, pressing all sorts of buttons until a box popped up that he began typing code into.

“Alright, we’ll set your hand as the new print again. Just pop it on there will you.”

Keith complied, pressing his hand to the scanner and waiting as it ran all its tests to get him into the system. It buzzed beneath his fingers upon completion, Coran looking quite please with himself.

“There we are, try open it up now.”

Keith did, and was relieved to find his door flew open immediately.

“A reset’s all it needed!” Coran announced cheerily.

“Oh, that’s good I guess. Thanks, Coran.”

“Don’t mention it! Anything for a boy who can find a Gama Fuse Generator for only twenty gac,” said Coran, and winked.

With that image scarring his mind, Keith nodded his thanks before entering his room, waving awkwardly at the Altean until the door shut and he was on his own. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Keith realised how tired he actually was. Maybe it was the cold that drained him, or all the people. He wouldn’t put it past purple to be a mentally draining colour either. Collapsing into bed, his last thought was of the stars adorning the ceiling of Magnificent Morghy’s Magic Emporium. What a strange place, and what a weird deal. Twenty gac for a fuse generator sure did sound like one hell of a scam.

-

“So I told him that’s what you get if you feed your snail American cheese, but he didn’t listen to me!”

“Tragic,” said Pidge.

“That’s awful,” said Lance.

“And the worst part is, they never even _found_ the shell. So that’s why they gave him a prosthetic, for the two days he lived.”

“Wow,” said Pidge, shaking her head at Hunk’s story.

“That’s heartbreaking,” said Lance.

Sometimes waking up and coming into the kitchen felt more like a fever dream to Keith, especially if the others were already there talking about… god knows what. He stared at them blearily for a moment, Pidge consoling Hunk with a hand on his shoulder, Lance continuing to shake his head looking all fresh and awake and _alive_. Screw Lance, why’d he have to be such a morning person? With his washed face and bright eyes and… and curly hair. Wow, his hair was really curly this morning, was it always that curly? It looked so… so nice. Keith shook himself, shuffling over to the ‘coffee’ ( _not_ coffee) machine that Coran had set up for them. The others were busy talking still, but he was having enough trouble keeping his eyes open; listening to them was secondary. Besides, they usually talked nonsense in the mornings. Keith shoved his cup into the machine, waiting for it to scan so it would know exactly what to make for him. That was every Altean cookery machine’s redeeming factor; it might not have served what was considered real coffee or food, but it remembered what you liked without even needing to be prompted.

Finally, drink in hand, Keith came to take his seat by the others. Lance shuffled over without thinking, though he and Hunk were still engaged in an intense argument about… night-lights, or something. Keith didn’t really care. Pidge shot him a tired smile, which Keith returned with a short nod. Pidge was probably the only one he could really tolerate being around in the mornings. Hunk was too full of crazy stories, and Shiro was too full of suburban mom vibes given that he’d probably already been jogging, ironed all his clothes, and was now busy preparing a healthy and nutritious breakfast to start the day. And Lance was too full of… looking nice, or something. _Smiling_. What did anyone have to smile about so early? Frowning at nothing, Keith took a large gulp of his coffee before _spitting that shit right the hell back out because_ -

“Keith! That’s disgusting!”

Keith was still trying to swipe away the taste of unsweetened space coffee off his tongue to pay attention to Lance, who he’d pretty much spat all over.

“What the hell man?” Lance exclaimed, looking appalled.

“This isn’t my coffee,” Keith protested, sticking his tongue out, refusing to put that or any other part of his drink back in his mouth until it tasted like something other than dirt and engine grease.

“So you decided to just spit it all over me?”

Lance looked flabbergasted, while Hunk and Pidge were struggling to hold back laughter.

“Sorry,” Keith muttered sarcastically.

“Shiro! Keith just got his coffee all over me!”

Keith’s eyes shifted to the older paladin, who was still busy cutting up something in the corner of the kitchen. The man sighed, pausing with the knife in hand.

“Keith, don’t spit your drink at Lance.”

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” Keith complained.

He glared down at his drink, _traitor_.

“I bet _you_ did this anyway,” Keith said suddenly, turning his glare on Lance.

“ _What?_ ”

“Like you messed with my door, you changed my order on the coffee machine!”

Lance’s mouth fell open, outraged.

“I did not!”

“Prove it.”

“Prove what? I didn’t touch your door or your stupid coffee. And by the way, when adults taste something they don’t like, they don’t spit it everywhere!”

“ _Ugh_ , you’re so irritating,” Keith growled, standing abruptly.

“ _Me?_ You spat on me!”

“Whatever.”

Keith stomped over to where Shiro was cooking, ignoring the raised brow the black paladin gave him as he grabbed a packet of sugar out from the cupboard.

“That thing doesn’t forget orders,” he muttered when Shiro continued to stare. “Lance messed with it I know he did.”

With a sigh and an amused shake of his head, Shiro left for the table, leaving Keith to stir in three heaped spoons of sugar into his coffee by himself.

They had a new mission that day, which Coran informed them of over breakfast. Keith didn’t pay much attention, knew Allura would give them a proper run down of the details later in the bridge, when Keith was more awake. Besides, improvisation was his best tactic. At least, it usually was. Though not according to Shiro.

Infiltrate a Galra stronghold, free the captives, get the computer data for Pidge, then retake the base. That was the shortened version of it anyway. It sounded easy enough, and Coran had even distributed cool looking pistols to all of them, to help them blend in as locals on the planet who’d aligned with the Galra. New weapons, plus a new setting on their suits that allowed them to turn all-black, another part of the disguise. Oh, Keith was feeling good.

“These guns are _sick_ , man, what noise do you think they make?”

At least he was, until he got paired with Lance.

“They make a gun noise.”

“That’s like saying a guitar makes a _guitar noise_ ,” Lance replied. “No, they’re all unique!”

“Guitar’s do make guitar noises,” Keith muttered.

Lance was too enthralled by the guns to pay that comment attention. Keith sighed, bored as he studied the numbers go down on the elevator they were on. Well, elevator was an underwhelming term, given they were currently travelling down from the atmosphere in it. That was how sky border control on the planet Nova-theza worked; all ships docked above the atmosphere, where all passengers disembarked before catching one of these things down to the surface. In theory it sounded pretty cool; in reality it had no windows so kinda just sucked.

“ _You’re almost to the ground_ ,” Allura said over the comms. “ _Are you three all set to go?_ ”

“Right as rain,” Pidge replied, never looking up from her tablet.

“ _Pardon?_ ”

“She means we’re ready,” said Keith.

“ _Excellent. Just remember, Shiro and I may not be able to contact you once we’re in the engine room. Hunk will remain online, but try not to divert his energies away from the prisoners unless absolutely necessary._ ”

“On it princess,” Lance replied cheerily.

Allura’s comm shut off, leaving Lance free to fill the rest of their elevator ride with unwanted conversation.

“So, how’re we leaving this thing? Cause I’m thinking height order-“

“Height order works,” Keith said.

“Knew you’d agree Keithy-boy. I’ll lead us out, we’ll look cool as _f_ -“

“Reverse height order.”

“What? _Keith_ , that’s cheating!”

“That’s literally not cheating at all?”

“Guys, we’re here,” Pidge said, fixing them with a steady glare.

“Guess you’re leaving first, Pidge,” Keith said with a smirk, ignoring Lance.

The youngest paladin shook her head in exasperation, but took up her place before the doors moments before they opened.

“Helmet’s up,” Lance instructed.

They all activated their helmets, which left them perfectly disguised as alliance members. The doors opened, and Keith tried to keep his heart rate under control. It wasn’t like they were going to be immediately sucked into a battle, but hiding in plain sight, knowing they had enemies staring right at them with no idea who they were, kept things a little tense. Or cool. Depending on who you asked. Pidge stepped through with her head held high, tablet tucked under her arm and ready to face… nothing.

“Wow, this is less cool than I thought it would be,” said Lance, sounding rather disappointed.

“Stay alert everyone,” Keith said. “This could be a trap.”

“What’s a trap, a deserted base- oh, oh no that could definitely be a trap.”

Keith rolled his eyes, going unseen by Lance as the other boy trailed after him into the base.

“Okay,” said Pidge. “This is not what I expected.”

“That makes three of us,” Keith muttered.

“Hey, Hunk, any Galra where you’re at?”

The comms buzzed for a second before Hunk’s voice came through loud and clear.

“ _Uh, no Galra here. But I thought that was the point?_ ”

“By the prison cells, yeah,” Lance replied. “But we’ve just arrived in the main docking centre and there’s no one here either. So just be careful.”

“ _Okay, okay, you too guys._ ”

Hunk was already whispering, so Keith figured they shouldn’t disturb him, given he had the solo, and arguably hardest part of this mission. Still, Allura had thought they’d need all three of them on the confrontational side, in case things went sideways. Now Keith just felt silly, with all of them armed to face nothing.

“You guys planning on standing around all day or what?”

Lance had gotten tired of waiting, and with his helmet down, was strolling off ahead of them.

“You should keep your helmet up,” Keith snapped.

“No one’s here, Keithy-boy.”

“I still think- _ugh_.“

Keith glared at Pidge, who’d just lowered her visor as well.

“What?” She asked. “They’re stuffy.”

“Whatever, don’t come crying to me when you guys get shot in the face,” Keith called after them angrily, eyes darting around the docking bay one last time before stalking off.

Lance was having a grand old time exploring this place, poking his head into every doorway they passed, all in all acting like an idiot. This could be a trap, or the Galra could simply be situated somewhere else, waiting to be stumbled upon at any time. They were here, they had to be; maybe they were on lunch break… or something. Okay that was a dumb guess but it was better than parading around acting like everything was _fine_ -

“Hey Pidge, you picking up any Galra round here?”

“No,” said the green paladin in response to Lance’s question. “I’m not seeing any life forms pop up. Looks like we’re really alone here.”

“In that case,” said Lance, and turned to Keith with that stupid, sleazy, insufferable smirk. “You, me, a race to the control room.”

“No.”

“So you admit I’m faster than you.”

“I didn’t- no, I’m not racing you to prove something so stupid,” said Keith, crossing his arms.

“Knew I was faster.”

“There could still be Galra here!” Keith exclaimed, almost throwing his arms up in frustration.

“My scanner’s showing-“

“They could be hiding, Pidge!”

“From this?” She asked, waving her tablet around that Keith knew contained some of the galaxies best heat detectors.

“Whatever,” said Keith.

“ _Whatever_ ,” Lance muttered under his breath. “Scared to lose a race-“

“God _dammit_ ,” Keith yelled, before holstering his gun and taking off down the hall at a sprint.

“That’s cheating!” Lance yelled, even though he was grinning like a madman and already starting to run.

Pidge shook her head at them, diligently following her way along the map as the two boys raced ahead and promptly forgot which way they were meant to be going. Keith’s heart was racing now, and he was not going to lose this race. He heard Lance’s feet thundering after him and picked the direction he guessed was right, tearing off just as Lance’s hand swiped out to try and grab him.

“Guess you are slower!” Keith shouted over his shoulder, as Lance cursed and skidded around the corner after him.

“I didn’t say go!”

They tore off down the passage like children, faltering when they hit another fork and looked rapidly which way to go. Lance gave a cry of frustration before picking the passage to the left and running for it. Keith followed mostly cause he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but also because even if they didn’t pick the right way, he had to stay ahead of Lance. The boy whooped loudly as he ducked around another corner before Keith, clearly thinking he was ahead. Well he was _wrong_ ; Keith was going to win this race one way or another. Another divide, and Keith was kind of getting the feeling they were going in circles, but it didn’t matter because when Lance hesitated it gave him the chance to trip the blue paladin and take his victorious lead.

They continued on for about five minutes before finally making it to the doors of the control room. They slid open and both boys tumbled in, simultaneously tackling each other to the floor to try and claim victory.

“You guys took the same wrong turn seven times,” said Pidge, already seated by the computer. “ _How?_ ”

Neither Lance nor Keith paid her much attention, as they were both still trying to shove the others face into the ground in order to win. It ended abruptly with Lance tapping out once Keith got him in a chokehold, and they stumbled apart swearing and dusting themselves off. Keith sprang to his feet, looking triumphant as Lance wheezed and glared at him from the floor.

“I told you I was faster.”

“What? No, you tripped me! That’s cheating!”

“You tripped _me!_ ”

“Would you two bone-heads shut up!” Pidge yelled. “I’m trying to focus.”

With one more smirk to rub his victory in, Keith turned away to go and help Pidge, leaving Lance to pick himself up off the floor and follow. The blue paladin was still shooting him dirty looks when they both leant over Pidge’s shoulder, watching her tap away at the Galran controls.

“Is it working?” Lance asked.

“In a minute.”

The pair waited approximately ten seconds before growing impatient.

“Is it working yet?” Keith asked.

“That wasn’t a minute.”

Both boys leant back with a sigh, ideally checking the entrance but not really concerned about anyone stumbling upon them. Pidge’s scanner was still showing no other signs of life in a very large radius.

“I can’t get past the final wall,” the girl exclaimed suddenly, drawing their attention back to her.

“Looks like it just needs a handprint,” said Lance, gesturing to the flashing screen.

“Thanks Lance, as if I haven’t tried-“

They both fell silent, blinking at Keith as he set his hand on the screen and it flashed green. _Access granted_ , read a little message on screen, and Pidge gaped.

“Maybe your hands not… big enough?” Keith suggested.

Lance laughed aloud, but Pidge looked too relieved to be into the system to care. She immediately began prepping to transfer the data across, sitting forward eagerly as she watched the files load.

“Boy,” said Lance, leaning over her shoulder, “it really was that easy-“

“Drop your weapons and step away from the consul!”

Keith’s blood ran cold as a commandeering voice spilt the air. Pidge and Lance had frozen by the consul, and now he realised their eyes were trained on him. Keith realised why when he felt the tip of a blaster press into his lower back, a clear threat that whoever it was that had caught them wasn’t afraid of using force.

“Easy,” said Lance, immediately setting his gun down, but not so far away that he wouldn’t be able to retrieve it again.

Pidge looked scared, her eyes darting between Keith and the files loading on screen.

“Look man, we don’t want to hurt you. Why don’t you lower the gun?”

Keith couldn’t see who or what was happening behind him, which was kind of infuriating, especially since that definitely wasn’t how Lance talked to Galra.

“I said drop _your_ weapons,” said the voice angrily, and now that Keith considered it, they didn’t sound that Galra either.

The sentence was punctuated by a hard shove of the gun against Keith’s back, and both his companions flinched at the action. It was then Keith realised he was the only one still holding his weapon, and dropped it reluctantly as a second set of footsteps joined the first.

“Good,” said his captor. “Now, step away from the controls.”

Pidge hesitated, clearly wondering if she should grab the disk. Whoever was behind Keith didn’t hesitate then.

“I said step away, or your friend gets it!”

“Come on Pidge,” Lance said, taking a wide step away from the controls and urging Pidge to come with him.

His eyes flickered to the scene across from him, and then to Keith. His captor must be directly behind him, because Lances eyes only shifted minutely across until he was smiling wide and friendly at whoever had the gun to Keith.

“Look-“

“Silence, prisoner,” they snapped.

Keith stifled a sigh, feeling quite useless. He wasn’t going to launch an attack until he knew what lay behind him, and so far his teammates hadn’t given him any clues.

“We came up from underground thinking the Galra had returned,” their captor said with a scoff. “What do we find instead? A bunch of children messing with our controls.”

“We’re not children,” snapped Pidge, in a very childish manner.

“Yep,” said Lance, speaking over her. “Messing about. Children. That’s us. You gonna let us go now?”

“Children who have the capabilities to breach our system and steal our codes,” someone sneered, this voice sounding more female.

If Keith let his eyes drift sideways, he could just make out someone standing by the controls. Dressed in the same uniforms they were, the woman was very alien looking, but decidedly not Galra. More wolf-like, actually, but if wolves talked, and stuff. Lance laughed nervously, glancing at the woman before returning to Keith and staring him down intensely.

“Come on guys, we came in peace,” he said, and thrust up three fingers.

“What’s that?” The alien, likely a man, behind Keith hissed.

“Oh,” said Lance, glancing at his fingers. “It’s a peace sign.”

Pidge looked at him too, just as Lance shook his head dramatically and exclaimed-

“Oh, wait no, it’s this,” and dropped one finger so it was two.

He frowned, creating confusion amongst their captors.

“Or maybe it was this?”

He lowered another finger, and by the time he got to that one, Pidge and Keith had caught on.

“I don’t remember,” said Lance, and promptly lowered his last finger.

Keith didn’t wait for any other sign. He threw his elbow back, feeling it connect with the man before he dropped to the floor and spun. He was vaguely aware of Pidge and Lance doing the same, the younger paladin flying towards the alien at the controls with a victorious cry, as Lance grabbed his gun and fired. Keith couldn’t pay much mind to them though, not when there was a boot against his throat because he’d been a little too slow on the pick up. No matter; he grabbed his hidden dagger, jamming it into the mans ankle before throwing him off. That pretty much eliminated that problem.

Before Keith could congratulate himself, another weight slammed into him and he was thrown to the floor again as another alien tried to wrestle the knife away. Whoever it was fought well, and he was left struggling on the floor with them for a good minute. They broke apart for a short second, each making it to their feet so they could consult each other properly. This guy was a lot bigger than the last, but had the same sleek features and sharp teeth as his companions. _Oh please, please don’t bite him_ ; Keith didn’t even want to _know_ if space tetanus was a thing.

The alien launched himself at Keith, who yelped embarrassingly before raising his dagger and ducking out the way. He could hear Lance and Pidge fighting alongside him, hoped there weren’t too many of these guys to handle. Lance probably wouldn’t have started the fight if he didn’t think they could win, so they would at least have a good shot-

“Stop!”

When the woman’s voice rung out, it was so jarring that even Keith and his opponent sprung apart to look. When he did, he froze, giving them the chance to get another gun on him. Didn’t matter, it was pointless to fight back now.

“Sorry guys,” Lance mumbled.

He was on his knees, looking more disappointed than scared as the local Nova-thesian gripped him by the hair with a knife to his throat.

“Stand down or he dies!”

Keith dropped his knife, and Pidge her bayard, the latter allowing herself to be wrangled with her arms behind her back. They didn’t bother touching Keith yet; his opponent just kept the gun on him, squinting at him intensely like Keith had a smudge on his face or something which was… weird. Whatever. Maybe they’d still have a chance this way.

“Tell me who you are,” The alien holding Lance insisted, her claws digging slightly into his skull and making him flinch.

“We’re traders,” the blue paladin managed, still a better bull-shitter than Keith or Pidge, even when he was on his knees being threatened.

“Of _what?_ ”

“Scrap,” Lance answered easily. “We thought your base was abandoned, so stuff was free for the taking, right?”

“Then why were you stealing codes off the system?”

Keith felt himself seize up, unable to think of a decent lie. He frowned at his captor. This guy would not stop squinting at him. The gun was still levelled at Keith’s chest, but he squinted harder and harder, like… did he have bad vision, or something? The Nova-thesian rubbed his eyes, blinking back at Keith in confusion. What the hell?

“Well the codes unlock doors and stuff, don’t they?” Lance asked, knowing full well that wasn’t what the codes did. “That’s how we get to the good stuff.”

Their captors appeared to think on this, Lance doing well at maintaining the façade of an ill-informed smuggler. Pidge was still freaking out, but only a little, desperate to get her hands on that disk again. And Keith… was still so confused by the guy with the gun on him. Every time the alien blinked, it seemed like his eyes lost focus on Keith again. He was holding the gun like he knew it had to be there, but looking at his prisoner was hard. It was kind of freaking Keith out, but mostly it just left him perplexed.

“Leader!” The Nova-thesian cried suddenly. “Look.”

Keith’s eyes darted to where a member of their party was holding up Pidge’s fallen bayard, and Keith’s heart sunk.

“What is it?” The one holding Lance snapped.

“I recognise it, this is a weapon belonging to a paladin of Voltron.”

“A weapon _stolen_ from a paladin of Voltron,” Lance said quickly. “And I’d be willing to trade it for our release-“

“Silence liar!” The alien snapped, shaking Lance.

He shut up quickly, realising as Keith and Pidge were that their cover was essentially blown.

“I want to see what codes they were taking,” the leader snarled, dragging Lance forward a little so they were before the consul. “Since we now have paladins on our hands, I’d say there is a slight bit more significance.”

“Paladins? We’re not paladins,” Lance tried, but flinched when the knife pressed into his skin.

Keith’s heartbeat jumped at the actions, watching intensely alongside Pidge to see if the knife would move any closer. It didn’t, but Lance didn’t dare speak anymore, not with the blade threatening him that close. Pidge was wrangled towards the consul, and the other five Nova-thesians all gathered around. Keith waited for himself to be shoved forward, but his captor was just… watching him. They were behind the others now, and no one was paying much attention since they were all looking at the screens. His captor blinked once, twice, frowned, and then… turned away. He considered his gun with mild confusion, but ultimately tucked it away and went to stand beside his companions.

For a second, Keith was too stunned to move. Had they just left him unguarded? Surely not, this couldn’t be right. He looked left and right, behind him, even above him, but the only people in this room were the crowd gathered in front of him, none of whom were watching him. It was as if his captor just forgot he was meant to be guarding someone. Oh my god, was he on their side? Did they have a secret ally? No one was watching him except Pidge; the girl’s eyes had drifted from the screen the Nova-thesians were gathered around muttering, and fallen on Keith. Her mouth fell open, and Keith’s tensed his shoulders as if to ask: _what the hell?_ Pidge shook her head minutely; she didn’t know. Keith was not going to let this opportunity go to waste.

He spied Lance’s bayard lying a few feet away on the floor, and began creeping towards it. No one turned, no one seemed to suddenly remember they had a loose prisoner behind them. Even Pidge tore her eyes away from him to avoid suspicion. Keith crouched down quietly beside the bayard, picking it up very slowly. This stupid thing better activate, especially since it was Lance they were saving. It did, miraculously, after a second’s hesitation. And then Keith was just left standing there with gun he had no idea what to do with. There were eight Nova-thesians, and only three of them. And only he had a weapon. Fate decided not to be kind to Keith; he was still debating what the hell to do when the leader of the aliens grew tired of them.

“I’m sick of your lies, paladin,” she hissed, and when she turned slightly Keith could see rows of pointed teeth staring down at Lance. “The Galra will have to be one paladin short.”

And oh, oh no, that sounded like a threat, that sounded like a very serious threat. She yanked Lance to his feet, still towering over the mere human, and either that knife was about to go through his throat or she was literally going to eat his head off, and Keith really didn’t want to see either of those things happen. He was so opposed, his arms seemed to freeze up, pulse in his ears and adrenaline spiking through his veins until all he could see was Lance and that knife and the kind of terrified look in the blue paladin’s eyes even though he was telling Pidge they’d be fine- so Keith fired.

Fired and missed _tremendously_.

The shot bypassed Lance, their leader, and all the other Nova-thesians, until it hit the far wall with a dull crackle. Wow, was Keith really that bad at shooting? One thing was for sure, and it was that they’d noticed him now.

“Great,” the leader hissed, but at least she’d lowered the knife in her shock. “There’s another!”

A chorus of snarls filled the room, and Keith felt like an idiot just standing there with Lance’s bayard; he was going to be hearing about this for weeks if they survived. But he did, really, intend for them to survive. So with very little plan in mind, he raised the gun and fired as many shots as he could at the ceiling. He had more success when the target was more ceiling sized, and Keith felt a swell of triumph as the large lighting units of the roof began to loosen and fall around them. It created enough momentary chaos for Pidge and Lance to break free. Keith felt elated, right up until one of the aliens slammed into him, almost knocking the gun from his grip.

They struggled on the floor, Keith unused to not having his knife to aid him. There was a crash from across the room, and in the midst of trying to fend this guy off, Keith caught sight of the their other teammates arriving in a flurry of colour and gunfire. The alien on top of him fought hard to disarm him, so Keith was relieved when he was suddenly hit unconscious and hauled off of him, and Lance’s smiling face was there to help him up.

“Good as you were, I think we should switch,” the blue paladin said, looking a little ruffled but overall happy.

He grinned when he held out Keith’s knife, the motion returned when Keith handed over his bayard.

“Nice job on the ceiling,” said Lance.

“Nice job on the lying,” said Keith, eyeing the little nic on Lance’s neck that looked somewhat bloody.

“Talk more after this?” Lance asked, gesturing to the chaos that had broken out around them.

“Sure,” said Keith. “Sounds good.”

With a grateful nod, Lance turned and was back in the action, firing away with much more precision than Keith had. Didn’t matter, he had his knife now, and with that he felt invincible. Shiro, Hunk, and Allura had all joined the fight, meaning they had this in the bag.

Just as he’d thought, the fight was over quickly, and the aliens subdued. Through it all, Keith tried not to think how odd it was, that the man who’d dropped his guard on Keith didn’t look his way twice. He didn’t admit to being an ally, didn’t fight any less harshly against them; even when they had them all subdued and Keith stood right before him, his eyes looked right through the paladin like Keith wasn’t even there. Like he’d forgotten him, strangely, like Keith was lucky enough not to be noticed in plain sight.


	3. the unfortunate lack of an afterthought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading despite the slow updates!! Your comments are everything they're so wonderful they're the best thing to happen to me thank u

They convened again as they always did around the dinner table. There was plenty of excitement tonight, considering the mission’s success and the overall twists and turns it had taken. Keith sat beside Shiro, shovelling food into his mouth because fighting off a horde of angry Galra allies left one feeling pretty hungry. Lance was in a better mood tonight, maybe because he was finally being hailed as somewhat a hero for at least participating in battle. Whatever, Keith still saved his life.

Pidge was very enthusiastically recounting the whole thing to the team, kindly acknowledging everyone’s roles. Once they’d gotten the Nova-thesians under control and the situation under wraps, Allura was able to figure out what had really been going on with the planet. Keith was never one to remember all the details, but in short a portion of the population had allied with the Galra for protection, only to be abandoned by them when the fleet moved on since their planet wasn’t considered resourceful anymore. Mostly, the planet was glad for it, especially once Voltron handed over control of the few scarcely populated bases. Their supposed ally never revealed himself, which Keith found odd, but hadn’t had a chance to think much about it. Maybe it really had all been luck.

Whatever it was, Keith’s day had really turned around after the embarrassment of that first shot he’d fired missing his target. He’d helped them take back the base, saved Lance and Pidge’s life, and supposed he was proud of them for what they’d done too. That was nice, sometimes, feeling proud of someone else. It wasn’t something he was used to, but Keith welcomed in the feeling. It had all been going great; dinner was edible since Keith was pretty sure Lance had taken to hiding Coran’s garbler-warbler fruit cake recipe consistently, and for once he wasn’t getting berated for being reckless after a mission. Keith was almost having a good day until his room locked him out again.

“ _Lance_ ,” he growled, and turned on the boy who’d just reached his own door.

“What?”

“Stop messing with my door!” Keith snapped, resisting the urge to do something childish like stamp his foot because why was Lance so _infuriating?_

“You’re blaming me _again_? Dude, I didn’t touch your door.”

“Sure,” said Keith. “Just like you didn’t hide Coran’s recipe.”

“Hey, I know nothing about that,” Lance shot back defensively.

For a second, he looked genuinely innocent; then that stupid smirk returned.

“So you can hack us into the Galra’s computer system but you can’t open your own bedroom door. Hah, sounds like _you_ could be Galra,” Lance joked.

“That’s not funny,” Keith hissed. “Stop touching my stuff.”

“I’m _not_.”

“Whatever,” Keith muttered, stalking off to find Coran.

He ignored the little wave Lance shot him, meant as a mockery, still furious that he had no proof the boy was messing with his door. It took him longer to find Coran this time, but when he did, it was the same procedure all over again.

“Hey, do you think you can program my lock to like, zap someone, or something. Someone who isn’t me?”

Keith asked the question as he waited for his hand to finish scanning, shooting glares in the direction of Lance’s room.

“Who did you have in mind?” Coran asked, squinting at the device.

“Lance.”

“Now, now, number four, I don’t think rigging up your bedroom door to assault the blue paladin would be quite right as a team player.”

Keith sighed, peeling his hand off the scanner and looking at it dismally.

“Is something wrong?” Coran asked.

“No,” Keith lied. “I just- ugh, he’s being really annoying. And I know he’s locking me out.”

“Might I suggest talking to him?”

“You may not,” Keith mumbled irritably.

“Very well. In that case, you could try an interpretative dance. Many of my own squabbles with friends and partners were resolved in that very manner.”

Keith waited a moment to see if Coran was joking, but as usual, he was not.

“Thanks, Coran. I’ll give it a try.”

“You must,” the Altean insisted. “Works a charm!”

Thankfully, he was already collecting himself to leave, waving Keith off and unaware of how lightly his advice was being taken. With a sigh, the red paladin finally unlocked the door to his room, wondering how much he’d need to bribe Pidge to have his door rigged against Lance.

-

When Keith woke the following morning, chaos had resumed as per usual. The Galra were attacking an allied planet, so before Keith had even had the time to complain that his coffee was wrong they were hurtling down towards said planet in their lions. There was a yelp over the comms as Hunk tripped for the fifth time trying to get his boot on; it wasn’t something that could be easily achieved in a moving lion. Keith listened boredly as Shiro barked instructions over the comms, formation this, flight-pattern that; Allura had said it might be a tough fight, but one they could win.

Still, once they swooped down into the atmosphere, Keith realised there were quite a few more Galra than he’d been expecting. Everyone started yelling immediately, until Shiro got them to calm down and listen to his reasonable plan instead of one of the ten they were currently each advocating for. There were definitely still slip-ups when the fought together, but Keith had to admit they were already better than when they’d started, despite the fact that most training exercises devolved into petty arguments. Petty arguments _mostly_ involving him and Lance, but the others joined in _sometimes_.

Thankfully there was little argument as they fought the Galra that day. Keith could see the damage they’d already done to the planet when he swooped lower and saw the scorch marks etched onto the surface, and the rubbly sections of cities. It fuelled him with a renewed anger, made him fight faster, and harder, taking out the Galra ships with purpose. It didn’t take long after forming Voltron for them to bring the fleet down, and the robot landed on the planet to sounds of people cheering, the last few remaining ships having shot off in retreat.

They were invited down, of course. The aliens of this planet, short, squishy looking beings, were also very talkative. They set their lions down in a large park relatively undestroyed in the capital, and once Allura had joined then, were lead up to what looked very much like a palace. Lance, as usual, was loving the attention. Keith got stuck walking beside him in their crowded little procession, and watched as he waved to their many adoring fans. Allura and Shiro were up the front talking details out with some of the other leads, while Coran brought up the rear of their group, recounting battle scene though he’d been miles out from the surface the entire time.

“So how many ships did you take down today?” Lance asked smugly, finding he was free of admirers for two seconds so bothering Keith instead.

“More than you,” Keith replied, like he did every time they won a battle.

“Hm, I distinctly remember it was me who took out more. Plus I took out the main cruiser.”

“Volton took out the main cruiser.”

“So?”

“Lance, we’re _both_ part of Voltron.”

Lace just chuckled, and was already walking off ahead, making Keith want to rip his own hair out. The palace they reached was grand, despite the fact the eastern side was completely reduced to dust. It was still big enough for them to host a huge crowd in the courtyard out front. Keith followed the other paladins up onto the elevated steps, where he could get a better view of the aliens gathered around. There were thousands of them all looking on and cheering for Voltron, and despite it being a little overwhelming for Keith, Allura looked overjoyed at the support.

The stood in their usual formation, with Shiro in the middle, and Keith and Pidge flanking him as the arms. It left Keith standing next to Lance, again, and the more the boy smiled the more irritated he got. Irritated at himself, for finding it so friendly. Lance never directed smiles like that at him, he didn’t get Lance’s carefree smiles, just his teasing smirks or perhaps, if he was lucky, one associated with laughter. But still, this crowd was getting Lance’s nice smile, and it left a stupid, ugly lump of jealousy in Keith’s stomach. Why? Because everyone liked Lance and not him? Because he loved this, the attention; was Keith jealous that he couldn’t smile and wave and be as charmed by the crowd?

His thoughts were abruptly cut short by a terrible high pitched ringing across the courtyard, and it took a minute of having fingers shoved in his hears to realise the leaders of the aliens hadn’t turned his translator on. By the time that had gotten sorted he was already into his speech, and Keith reluctantly unblocked his ears.

“We welcome you all to our planet to celebrate a great victory!”

His voice was very pitchy, reminding Keith of a child’s after they’d inhaled a great deal of helium.

“Voltron has defeated the Galra and saved our planet from occupation!”

A thousand other little pitchy-helium cries went up from the crowd. It was making these aliens seem more and more like actual helium balloons themselves. Was that rude? Keith never knew how he was meant to interact with anyone, on any planet. Human customs were bad enough, but chuck a few hundred alien ones into the mix, it was all too much to remember and too daunting to attempt. Usually keeping your mouth shut and smiling without showing your teeth did the trick. And not blinking. They’d been to like twelve planets where blinking was rude, and honestly, Keith was really sick of it.

“Join with me in congratulating our heroes!” The speaker announced, and Keith realised he’d zoned out.

“Shiro the leader!”

A huge, high-pitched cry of excitement from the crowd.

“Hunk of the yellow lion!”

Another, even pitchier. Keith hoped Hunk was the most popular and things would gradually decrease in pitch from there.

“Pidge of the green lion and Lance of the blue lion!”

Things did not. Keith sighed, glad he never held a chance at being the most popular, meaning his ears might get a break.

“And of course,” said the speaker, “the princess Allura of Altea!”

Pitchier, and louder than Keith had ever heard. It would be so, so rude to block his ears, but Keith was so, so tempted. In fact, he was so caught up in being annoyed, he didn’t realise they hadn’t announced him until Shiro was clearing his throat.

“Uh, and Keith,” the black paladin prompted in the direction of the speaker. “Of the red lion?”

“Eh?”

The alien speaker turned his bubbly little self towards the line of paladins, squinting at each one in earnest before settling on Keith.

“And… Keith,” he said. “Of the… red lion.”

Then he looked out across the city in search of the lions, as if to confirm that yes, there really was a fifth one Keith had flown. The crowd gave a half-hearted cheer, but Keith didn’t really care anyway. He tried to avoid drawing in the attention of others, and usually that wasn’t difficult. He wasn’t going to throw himself at these aliens and beg for their love and affection like Lance did, it just wasn’t him.

They were moving on now anyway, and Allura was following the speaker inside for a tour of the palace, the others made to follow. Keith fell into step beside Shiro, smiling politely at the aliens who crowded their feet trying to speak, but glad Lance and Hunk were receiving most of the questions.

“You didn’t threaten that speaker, did you?” Shiro asked with a small smirk.

“What? Of course not.”

Shiro hummed, and Keith rolled his eyes.

“Threaten him for what? Introducing me?”

The black paladin just shrugged, with that irritating look about him like he knew more than Keith, or something. He probably did, but, that was beside the point. It was only when Lance saddled up beside them that Keith’s mood really soured.

“Guess they just don’t like you, mullet.”

Ignoring Shiro’s tired sighed and the way the elder paladin walked swiftly ahead of them, Keith turned to glare at his teammate.

“We can’t all annoy our way into people’s conscious.”

“Annoy? I think you mean charm. Or _influence_. Or dazzle-“

“I found Coran’s fruit cake recipe in the trash today,” Keith interrupted. “Isn’t that crazy? I mean, how do you think it ended up there?”

Lance’s mouth snapped shut, and Keith swore he saw his jaw twitch.

“Don’t know,” the blue paladin replied nonchalantly.

“Hm. Well, I gave it back to him, and don’t worry, he assured me he’ll be making it for dinner.”

Keith smiled as they came to a stop at the palace entrance, and gave Lance’s shoulder a harsh pat.

“I know you love that fruit cake, right Lance?”

“Of course I do,” Lance said tightly.

“Right. Cause you’re Coran’s favourite, right?”

“I sure am-“

“And he’d be like, pretty devastated, if you didn’t like it.”

Lance narrowed his eyes, jabbing a finger into Keith’s chest. 

“I _do_ like it.”

“Right,” said Keith. “So you weren’t the one who put it in the trash.”

“I would never-“

“Or the airlock-“

“Keith-“

“Or the laundry chute-“

“Do you want something?” Lance snapped, crossing his arms.

Keith shrugged. “No.”

Lance narrowed his eyes.

“Oh,” said Keith. “Yeah, no, I just remembered. I wanted you to _shut up_.”

“You’re a _funny guy_ ,” Lance sneered as Keith turned and walked off, feeling happy with himself.

Yeah, he was a funny guy. And Lance was an irritating guy. That’s why they talked, because Lance was irritating. Not because Keith enjoyed it, or that on the occasion’s Lance laughed he felt lighter. That was good enough reasoning for him, anyway. And Keith wasn’t going to try and dig deeper into it, ever.

-

The next week felt like it dragged on forever, despite the fact they barely had a free moment. It seemed like Zarkon was attacking a new planet every hour, until Keith couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken to something other than Allura’s voice over the speakers telling them to get their asses to their lions. Couldn’t the Galra attack at a somewhat normal hour? Their ships had to be set to different time zones, because this was getting ridiculous. Between the odd meal times and disrupted training schedules and grouchy teammates, Keith had simply stopped locking his door, since whatever Lance had done to it meant he was locked out every night. It was annoying, Keith was annoyed, but sometimes even he could admit defending innocents against the Galra was a little more important than starting petty fights with Lance.

Their first break wasn’t really a break, more a mission than turned out to not hold any danger. They’d picked up evidence of growing Galra activity on the surface of a desert planet, but upon arrival found it empty. They took a shuttle down, not wanting to expose the lions in case there were any hostile beings here. Allura decided they should scout the area anyway, just to be safe, and Keith found he didn’t mind it. He volunteered to scout an area on his own, desperate for some quite after the rush of the last few days, and happily set off into the desert while Allura was still assigning roles to the others.

“Two hours!” Shiro called as they all went their separate ways. “Tops, then you’re back here!”

Keith shot back a haphazard thumbs up, enough top let Shiro know he’d been heard. It didn’t take long for him to loose them after that. Not lost, just pleasantly alone, Keith began to follow his set path. This reminded him of home, a vast desert and blue sky and dry heat. The others were complaining bitterly about it, but Keith liked this. He didn’t feel scared, or lost, when their voices faded; rather, he was at peace. Despite how big space was, often it felt like he never had one second alone, away from them. So he basked in the warm sun on his back, and marvelled at the prints his feet left in the dust, and clamoured to the tops of tall rocky rises, partially to scout the area, but mostly for the view.

It was from the top of one of these that Keith spotted the old mine. He assumed it was that, and upon drawing closer, his suspicious were confirmed. It didn’t scream Galra infrastructure at all, so either belonged to a different group of opportunistic travellers, or some inhabitants that had since gone. It was definitely abandoned, nothing here but rusting machines and holes filling with dust and rocks. Everything was dry, no puddles collecting in the steep ditches, suggesting it neve rained here. Old mine shafts were boarded up, but even the boards were falling down. Keith decided to investigate one on the off chance something had decided to make a home of it.

The boards broke easily when he kicked them, light spilling into the tunnel and illuminating the clouds of dust. Just like everywhere else, there was nothing here. Keith activated the lights on his flight suit, shining them a little way down the tunnel. It was a little too creepy, even for his standards. If something was living in there, he didn’t need to bother it, so long as it wasn’t bothering them. There were clearly no Galra, and that was all he needed to know. He made his way back to the entrance, carefully slipping between the shattered boards. Not carefully enough, evidently.

Keith cursed when he tripped, crashing down into the remaining boards, which all crumbled under his weight. That would all have been fine, if the huge wooden plank they’d been supporting hadn’t come crashing right down on top of everything, Keith included. For a few seconds, all he could do way lie there, arms thrown over his head and eyes shut against the downfall of dust and sand. When Keith blinked his eyes open, there was a heavy weight over his legs. He swore. Trying to shuffle forward on his stomach, it became clear he was trapped, pinned to the hard ground by the collapsed beam. It wasn’t overwhelming, he wasn’t going to suffocate, but his legs were well and truly trapped beneath it.

It took Keith a few minutes to think past the anger clouding his mind. His initial reaction, as it always was, was that overwhelming irritation, at this mineshaft, at himself, for not taking more care. If he’d been just a little more careful, if he hadn’t landed quite so… Keith huffed, taking a deep breath to calm himself and swallow down that rage. Cursing himself over his situation wasn’t going to get him out of it. Switching on his comm, Keith was disappointed to find all he could hear was static. Allura had warned them about electromagnetic interference down here, which is why Keith had paid careful attention to not getting lost, but not stuck beneath a partial cave in, it was frustrating and a little concerning not being able to radio in for help.

That was alright, he was alright. He wriggled in the dirt, bringing an arm into view so he could study the time displayed by his suit. Ugh, still over an hour until they were meant to be back at the shuttle, which meant over an hour before they even started looking for him. Not that it was a serious problem, he wasn’t bleeding out or in any immediate danger, it was more just the wait. The very long, uneventful, boring wait. And the look on Lance’s face when they found him trapped under some fallen timber, _Christ_ , he’d never hear the end of this. The right decision then, was to get himself out. He’d gotten into more reckless situations in the desert, and never had to be dug out like some damsel in distress. _More like dumbass in distress_ , he could almost hear Lance saying. So with renewed determination, Keith set to work freeing himself.

He gave up after a tiring ten minutes of trying to tug his legs free. They were stuck, and the more Keith thought about it, the more he disliked it. There was no danger now, but what if something did come along? Or what if something had been living in the tunnel behind him? Those thoughts, none of them good, had him trying a new approach. First it was digging, then it was re-angling his body, then it was tampering with his comm for a few minutes before giving up on the device with a growl. Keith didn’t like being stuck. If he’d been caught in an ambush or something, he’d have preferred it; this was boring and a waste of his time, not to mention his legs were cramping under the weight of the timber.

A time check told Keith he still had a while to wait. It had taken him nearly the full hour to get out here too, so any search party would take ages. Stifling a sigh, Keith began formulating a new approach. He had little to work with, but a strong looking beam within arms reach gave him hope. It took a bit of thinking and a longer while yet to manoeuvre it into place, but with enough effort, he was sure he could lift the fallen timber enough to escape. It was hard, impossible almost to wedge the fallen beam in beside his legs. Keith worked slowly, not watching to disturb the fallen debris anymore, and got the beam into position.

It still felt awkward an unsecure, but Keith was getting desperate. He struggled to twist over, hands clutching the beam. If he could lower it a little, given how it was currently sticking into the air since it had been wedged under the timber, then perhaps it could lift some of the weight off his legs. So Keith directed all his strength into pushing down on the beam, using it as a type of lever to lift the collapsed material. It was hard work, and at first felt as if it wouldn’t budge, but trying a little harder, he was able to feel the slightest lift over his legs. _Perfect_. Keeping weight on the beam, Keith began to shuffle forward, tugging his legs out from where they were trapped.

In hindsight, he should have taken it slower, been more careful about how he moved his legs. But escape was imminent, and in his haste he took no care in keeping the delicate operation together. It wasn’t the beam that slipped, rather the material resting on it, slipping from the balance and landing full force on top of him again. That alone was not the problem, and Keith’s first indication of failure was the sharp, jarring pain of a small spike, a nail perhaps, driving straight through the flesh of his thigh.

The beam was released the same time a cry caught on his lips, which was a mistake, as even more weight began pressing down, driving the nail home. Keith gasped into the dirt, trying not to scream in equal parts frustration and pain. The irritation at failing faded quickly, replaced by the sickening reality that there was now a sharp shard of _something_ resting two inches below the skin just above his knee. And it _hurt_. Keith grit his teeth, swallowing a sob and pressing his forehead to the ground until he managed to get his breathing under control. Fine, he was fine, he wouldn’t bleed out, he could probably still walk, it was just… being the dumbass in distress was sounding like quite a nice option right about now, so long as some one else came and lifted this off of him.

In frustration, he tried the comms again, grinding his knuckles into the dirt angrily when the same static signalled there was no one there. He checked the time, and there was still too much of it, too much time to spend lying here with a nail in his leg. Tears filled his eyes, and Keith blinked them away stubbornly. It was one stupid nail, he’d gone through worse. He’d become too reliant on them, on his teammates, had grown used to them swooping in to save each other every time something went wrong. This was fine, Keith could take care of himself. He just had to lift the collapse again, more carefully this time… and higher, to get that nail out.

Taking a few calming breaths, Keith readied himself to lift again. It took a while to get the beam back into position, made harder this time by the fact that every time he moved he could feel that nail driving into his flesh. After what felt like hours, he was finally pushing down on the beam again. The mass of material over his legs shifted slightly, and Keith winced at the feel of the nail, the thought of it driving back down even harder. A few seconds of concentrated effort later, he breathed the stuttered whimper building in his throat as two inches of nail withdrew from his leg. Small, slight shuffles to bring himself forward. His arms were shaking with the effort, but his legs were slowly coming free. A final push and Keith yanked his body clear of the danger zone, the timber crashing down behind him as he released the lever and curled away from it all.

Hands aiding him across the ground until he was far away from the collapse, Keith sat back with a sharp sigh, torn between cursing this stupid mineshaft out or just crying. He settled for sitting there silently for a while, biting back angry tears and inspecting the neat little hole in the back of his leg. Though it wasn’t fatal, it still hurt like hell, and he tried again to radio in to the others. The thought of an hours walk back…

Still, it was better to get back. Sending out a search party was a waste of everyone’s time, and as nice as having a pick up party sounded, Keith knew it was more practical to just get himself back. Walking wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, but the further he walked, the harder it became. He made it out of the ditch the mineshaft sat in, then across the crater, towards the mounds of low hills he’d come from.

This was, by far, the worst idea he’d had this week. A check on the time told him he had only a few minutes before their supposed meeting time, giving him some hope that he’d be collected early. No one came though, even once the time ran out. Keith kept hobbling back across the barren landscape, following the marks of his delicate footsteps from earlier. His steps weren’t nearly so careful now. If anyone was trying to track him, they’d have an easy time at it, only needing to follow the slurred footprints and little speckles of blood across the sand.

His leg was hurting worse and worse, until Keith wondering if he could be developing some sort of infection already. He was late as it was, but if they were looking for him or waiting, no one had come this way yet. He was beginning to sweat from the exertion, bleeding slowly from his wound and hating his stupid choices more and more with every step. He’d accept some teasing from lance right now, if it meant having someone to help him walk back.

By the time he stumbled over and down the final hill, Keith was on the verge of collapse. The sun was beginning to go down here, and he shivered as he hobbled through the cold shadows, towards their shuttle which was illuminated by the orange sunset. From this distance, he could vaguely see Shiro hanging off the side of it, waving to a figure that wasn’t Keith. He stopped, slumped against a rock and waiting for someone to spot him. Oh, there was Lance, also late, sprinting for the shuttle and yelling apologises to Shiro.

“You’re late!” The black paladin called.

“Got held up!” Lance yelled as he ran across the dry earth.

Keith watched in amusement, too tired to bother walking the last hundred or so metres. As soon as Shiro hopped down he’d see him, come over to offer a hand-

“You’re the last one back,” Shiro called to Lance, a little irritable.

“I’m sorry!” The blue paladin shot back, exasperated.

He jumped up onto the ladder, looking sheepish as he ducked around Shiro into the shuttle. And that was fine, that was alright, except- _the last one?_ Did he mean the last one to return? Because Keith was still here, not on board yet, they still had to wait for him-

“Fire up those engines, princess,” Shiro called.

Keith didn’t know what it was that made him move; panic, confusion, hurt. Because Shiro was giving the area one last scout, then moving for the door. The engines roared to life, and were they… where they going to take off? _Without him?_ Keith lurched forward, stumbling across the open ground while clutching his injured leg because no, this couldn’t be happening this wasn’t right. Shiro turned, about to step through the shuttle door, and panic seared through Keith.

“Shiro!” He yelled.

It didn’t make sense, it didn’t make any sense, and he was hurt and his leg was hurting and why were they _leaving without him?_

“Shiro!”

Louder, and this time the man turned. It took a second for his gaze to settle on Keith, and when it did, he frowned.

“Keith?”

There was confusion in his voice too. Keith stopped, tripping over his own feet and hissing when his knees hit the ground. It hurt so badly, but he couldn’t even think of his leg, not when… when they were leaving.

“What are you doing?” Shiro asked, still sounding confused.

“I…I’m…”

Keith’s tongue felt dry. What was happening? Shiro hopped down from the shuttle, stepping cautiously towards him.

“Are you alright?” He asked. “You look hurt.”

Keith swallowed, getting to his feet shakily, watching the paladin approach.

“Were you… were you going to leave?” He asked.

It hurt to ask.

“What?”

“Were you going to leave without me?” Keith asked.

Shiro’s frown morphed into disbelief. “Leave without you? No, no of course… we weren’t.”

He didn’t sound sure. Why did Shiro look confused? Why were the engines going even though Keith wasn’t there?

“It just, it looks…” Keith swallowed.

Who was he, why did he feel so damn emotional? Of course they weren’t going to leave him, right?

“We’d never leave without you,” Shiro said finally, sounding more sure.

It was like he’d shaken himself out of a daze, and began striding towards Keith with more confidence.

“You’re bleeding, what happened? Here, let’s get you on-board.”

Keith readily accepted the helping hand offered to him, leaning heavily on Shiro as they hobbled back regardless of how confused he felt.

“You gotta stop with the reckless acts,” Shiro berated as they got up the ladder, assisted by Allura at the top.

“Goodness,” she said, setting sights on Keith’s leg. “What happened to you?”

“I just, uh, it was an accident,” Keith croaked out.

She looked so concerned, so caring, just like Shiro, but she’d been the one to fire up the engines. If this was some sort of sick plan to leave him on the planet, she was part of it too. Still, Keith accepted their help getting inside, slumping heavily into his seat at last.

“I was wondering when you’d get back.”

“At least someone was,” Keith muttered, before realising it was Lance who’d spoken and that he was now being heavily scrutinised.

“You alright?” The blue paladin asked suddenly, more genuine. “You look like something sent you through its whole digestive tract.”

“Thanks,” Keith said bluntly.

Even so, he was sort of glad to see Lance acting normally.

“I mean the whole tract-“

“Wow, man, are you okay?” Hunk was there suddenly, followed and Pidge and a medical kit as Shiro and Allura booted up the engines again.

“Yeah, yeah I’m good.”

“Like the teeth got you first,” continued Lance. “But you went through the _whole_ system-“

“Want a bandage?” Pidge offered.

“You need to disinfect that,” said Hunk.

“It looks like something shit you out,” said Lance.

“Seats please,” Allura said. “We’re taking off.”

Everyone returned to their seats with only minor grumbling, though Keith appreciated the small chewable painkiller Lance snuck him as they ascended back through the atmosphere. It didn’t calm him completely though, and it didn’t stop him wondering. He looked at Shiro in the co-pilots chair, at Allura, and his others friends. Had they meant to leave him? Was it a trick his mind was playing on him? Lance shot him a smile as they headed back for the castle, and Keith wanted to believe that no one, at least none of the people there with him, would abandon him like that. But still, watching the surface of the shrinking planet, he wondered what would have happened to him if they’d left him there.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [jupiters-junipers](https://jupiters-junipers.tumblr.com/)  
> I love saying hi! comments are a direct way to buy my soul


End file.
